UNIT 2 CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS OF PEACE

AND CONFLICT
Structure

2.1 Introduction
2.2 Human Nature
2.3 Peace
2.4 State, Society and Peace
2.5 State as an Instrument of Peace
2.6 The Civil Society Dimension and Peace
2.7 Negative and Positive Conceptions of Peace
2.8 Summary
2.9 Exercises

2.1 INTRODUCTION
The terms Peace and Conflict are paired opposites, like light and shadow, and many other
such paired opposites. However, there is one very important difference between Peace and
Conflict on the one hand and Light and Shadow on the other. In the case of the latter pair
there is no doubt as to which comes first. For it is light that comes first producing the
shadow. This cannot be said of peace and conflict with any certainty. Ordinarily, talk of
peace only follows in the context of pre-existence of violence or conflict. There may be
praise or benediction for the prevalence of peace and prescriptive norms come to the
forefront when conflict and its external manifestation constantly disturb the consciousness
of a human being on the social order.

The desire for peace and prayers for its prevalence and preservation has been the common
theme of all spiritual or religious traditions since ancient times. "Om Shantih, Shantih,
Shantih" is the restrain of Hindu prayers down from the Vedic times. "Peace on Earth, and
goodwill towards to all mankind constitutes the noble aspiration of the Semitic faiths, the
Jewish, the Christian and the Islamic alike. The quest for inner and external peace is the
quintessential feature of Buddhism and Jainism.

Even so, it can be questioned whether such invocations of peace are descriptions of the
human condition circumscribed all around by human nature (and even nature itself) or only
prescriptions for the human beings to aim at. Theories about human nature and its propensity ,
for peace and conflict are ridden with disagreements. Even on the basic question whether
"there is some 'true' or innate nature of human beings.... Or there is no such 'essential'
human nature?" there is no agreement among religious thinkers, philosophers and
psychologists.

Thus, since time immemorial when humankind began to reflect on the human condition, the
 problems of peace and conflict have continuously posed a challenged to thinkers. One
could even say that it is the all-pervading presence of conflict that prompts the desire for
peace and promotes the efforts for securing peace in human affairs.
k
Significantly enough, corresponding to the invocation of peace, all spiritual traditions also
recognise the counterforce of evil as a perennial problem in human existence. In Christian
i
theology this is called the problem of Theodicy. Why should there be violence and suffering
in the world? Why should this arise as much from human agency as from natural causes?
Can this be overcome in the human condition? Other religious and cultural traditions raised
identical questions. All of us realise that these are the questions that go side by side with
the ascriptions and prescriptions for Peace on Earth.

It is not only the religious thinkers that were seized with this conflicting pair of peace and
conflict. Even in secular thought this problem occupies a central place. For example, in
ancient India, the Lokayata theories (that rejected the religious quest as irrelevant to the
human condition) grappled with the theme of the woes and tragedies of human being's
existence. Likewise, other philosophical traditions while dismissing religion-based explanations
of evil, sin and conflict, have all the same concentrated upon the human predicament of
conflict and the prospects for peace in humanity's existence. With much of contemporary
philosophy on the problems of peace and conflict distancing itself from the religious
explanation, secularisation of thought in this field has become the primary paradigm. In this
quest, Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology and Political Science have joined hands.
I
One can go to the extent of saying that the secular schools of thought replaced the
spiritualist-oriented explanations as the latter, in many cases, have come to be regarded as
neither useful in ameliorating the conflict condition, nor effective in bringing peace on earth.
Some of the secular critiques have gone beyond being merely being sceptical about the
spiritual standpoint. They hold religion and religious concerns themselves responsible for
,
fostering conflict and thus acting as obstacles to peace. However, the scope of concern
and the extent of diversity among the ideas relating to peace and conflict in the secularist
paradigm are as varied and intense as they are in the religious discourse on the theme.

The two concepts, peace and conflict, remain enmeshed and it is difficult to identify which
of the come first in the matrix of the human condition.

I 2.2 HUMAN NATURE

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While human nature is too broad and too general an explanation of human behaviour, a
brief discussion does afford a good starting point to understand peace and conflict. Broadly,
there are three views on human nature in the academic disciplines of psychology,
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anthropology, sociology and political science. These hoM that human nature is: 1) essentially
good and peaceful, 2) essentially bad and aggressive, and 3) transformed by social
relationships. Though it is not possible to discuss the diverse aspects of these views, it is
?d
necessary at least to touch upon them briefly.
t
i) Human Nature is Essentially Peaceful

The main source of this view lies in the fact that in all creation the human being is unique.
Endowed with a developed mind that is capable of thinkirig and 'knowing' that it can think,
the human being is also gifted to think in icrnls of 'good' and 'bad'. This is usually called
the capacity for discr.irnincr~ion,by which the ethical sense inheres in the humankind.
Qualities like altruism (doing good to others), sympathy for others in distress, and pity for
the suffering of fellow creatures are quite l~aturull?attiibuted to our nature as humail beings.
It is in the context of possessing these 'noble' features that the human being is called a
benign being. The notion of spirituality is strongly attached to this idea of the benign nature
of the human being. Spirituality and its related idea of religion, trace all creatioll to a Divine
power holding that the human being occupies a special place in God's creation. And it is
this special bond between the human and the divine that provides the foundation for the
benign view of human nature. What is important to note IS that all religious traditions
endorse this notion.

Even those that do not subscribe to the religious point of view acknowledge that the
qualities of love, mercy and luridness are inherent to human nature. The ethical and altruistic
nature, according to them, is in fact traceable to the process of the biological evolution of
life and in particular to the evolution of man from the animal world.

As against the religious origins of the role of ethics in human relations, these secular critics
argue that religion leads to conflicts and wars in the name of dogma and competing gods.
What is called Humanism is closely associated with this critica! thinking. According to it,
Man by his very nature shapes his own destiny. The well-known formulation of the ancient
Greek thinker, Protogoros, that "Man is the measure of d l things", is regarded as expressing
this humanist viewpoint. A further development of this idea was contributed by the idea of
Progress, which gained great prominence in the eighteenth century Europe as a result of
the weakening of the monopolistic hold of Christianity and the rise of modem science.

Humanism of this epoch enunciated that humanlund is evolving constantly towards progressive
stages in human thought and conduct and that the present is better than the past and the
future will be better than the present. It can be seen how Humanism confirms, in an
important sense, the role of the innate goodness in the thmlung and doings of the humankind.
Some prominent humanists held that the complete perfectibility of the humankind is possible
by the sole efforts of themselves without the intervention of any supernatural / spiritual
agency.

That this notion has very strong links to the role of the ethical spirit is further shown by
the fact that this theory is also called Ethical Hulnanism or Rational Humanism.

ii) Human Nature is Essentially Aggressive

Paradoxically, some aspects of the religious traditior~s'1s well as secular traditioils also
occupy the common ground that human llature is inherently aggressive.

In the religious traditions that notion exists uide by side with the notion about inan's benign
instincts being endowed by God's grace. Religions seek to explain this coexistence of the
two incompatible tendencies by diverse theories. Yet common to the notion that human
nature is prone to cxhibit 'conflict' is the concept of Evil in all exislence. How can evil exist
at all in Gq.~i'.> i.4 the challenge all religions grapple with. The common theme in
 grappling with this challenge is that Good and Evil are in constant conflict though the hope
of all religions is that ulti~natelyGood will triumph.

The concept of Sin is closely connected with the notion of Evil. The Semitic religions
i (derived from the Jewish religion) explain Sin with reference to the Original Sin that God's
first human creations, Adam and Eve committed in defying God's commands as a result
s
of which He banished them from Paradise (which can be called the Realm of Pure Goodness)
till Redemption is granted by God. Hinduism, on the other hand, explain sin apd suffering
broadly in terms the doctrine of Karma which holds that the conduct of men and women
in their previous births determines their way of life and conduct in their current existence.
As virtue and vice coexist, humankind should strive to follow the path of virtue. This is the
main theme of the Hindu tradition.

Buddhism holds that 'Desire' is the source of constant human dissatisfaction, causing pain
t'
and conflicts within human relations. Curbing of desire is the way to avoid pain, conflict
, and suffering. It is also significant that Buddhism lays stress on non-violence as the supreme
d h m or dky. The liberation of the soul essentially consists in attaining a state of abstinence
from &sire and commitment to non-violence.

Thus we can note that the religious paradigm is greatly concerned with problems of peace
and conflict. Their explanations in terms Sin, Karma, Desire, however, are concerned in
i tern of 'mysterious'. origins not easily understandable in purely rational or secular terms.

The secular theorists say that it is precisely the existence of suffering and its 'unexpla,inable'
nature that should make us sceptical about the role of the supernatural, or God.

However, the point is that even the secularists and the xientific psychologists have to
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explain human beings' bad propensities. The latter hold that the human mind is so constructed
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(as it evolved) that various types of instincts and urges drive or motivate human beings to
kxternal acts which we call by the names of good and bad acts. Aggression in its various
i' forms is the result of the latter condition of human living.
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The theory of evolution propounded by Charles Darwin in the nineteenth century has, more
or less, demonstrably confmed this truth. Darwin further explained the role of aggression
as a necessary aspect of evolution of living species by which some species survive and

F others perish. We have come to accept almost as truth his formulation that evolution
progresses through the mechanism of the survival of the fittest. Aggression,
condition in all evolution.
--
thus, is a given
-

One point should he noted in this context. While evolutionary theory does state that the
animal nature of man is a reality, the theory also states that the very process of evolution
also leads to the development of certain organs' and through them certain 'faculties' in
, higher living organisms- the highest among them being the human being. The development
of the 'brain' and its main faculty, 'thinking', is perhaps the most important manifestation
in this process. In its turn, this faculty also ~arriedwith it the accompanying endowment,
I- which is the power of discrimination and the capacity for love, mercy and compassion. Of
course. the opposite qualities of hate and revenge lire a150 p r r a i ~ d1:srzcl o t tht: iluman
I
kind. However. !he capacitv for. discriminaiion hetuce;~g c ~ alrJ d c:ril .I!>() hold5 out the
The foregoing discussion makes it clear that the ideas about human nature are integrally
related to the problem of the existence of peace-oriented and conflict-oriented conduct of
men and women. While for the sake of analysis we treated the two subjects -human
nature, and peace and conflict separately, in reality they are one and the same.

A closely connected issue is the problem of violence as a part of human nature. Here again
there are diametrically opposed views among thinkers and experts. Some hold that by
nature human being abhors violence and that violence is 'unnatural'. This is expressed both
as a statement of 'fact' and as a normative or moral norm statement (or an 'ought'
statement), that is, how human nature ought to be. Thinkers belonging to the 'pacifist'
school of thought belong to this category. The emphasis on Shanti as the condition of
human existence, for that matter universal existence in the ancient Indian tradition and Jesus
Christ's preaching of non-violence, peace and good will are good examples and provide
the foundations for peace and non-violence. Thinkers like Mahatma Gandhi built their
thoughts and actions on these principles.

On the other hand there are thinkers that believe violence to be the 'natural' state of the
human condition. Not only that. Some of them even state that violence is not only natural
but that is moral also. To them the inherent tendencies in life's process cannot but result
in violence. Violence is spontaneous and is constantly manifested. The French thinker,
Georges Sorel, is a good instance of this category of thinkers. He differed from other
thinkers like Karl Marx, who also did not condemn violence as 'immoral' but even assigned
it a positive role in bettering the human condition. For Marx. the question of the morality
or immorality of violence was irrelevant since the moral category in human life is in itself
a false category. Sorel differed from Marx is holding that violence in human affairs is
positively moral. We refer to Georges Sorel to highlight the intricate way in which the
concept of violence is related to the concepts of good and evil and those of morality and
immorality.

iii) Human Nature isTransformed by Social Relationships

In one sense, this school of thought need not be separated from the two earlier ideas and
should be treated as a continuation of the above two. Broadly speaking, this idea expresses
the view that quite apart from the innate feature of human nature; it is the actions of men
and women that give rise to the external manifestation of inherent natural tendencies in
human beings. This is of course true, though it cannot always be the case that an action
we normally regard as 'bad' is necessarily the result of the manifestation of a bad human
nature, or that a 'good' action is due to a good aspect of human nature. As human beings
we act, react to the actions of others and then assess or evaluate the actions of others
(and, for that matter, our own actions) and designate them as 'good' or 'bad'. Thus, it is
only when at least two human beings are involved in interaction that both the processes of
evaluating actions for their good or bad consequences and of connecting them to individual
human natures occur.

Purely from the 'social relations' point of view, then, human nature in the 'pure' sense of
the individual nature is at best irrelevant or at worst illusory. Does individual human nature
matter in the case of a person living all alone say, like a Robinson Crusoe as a castaway
consequence to another individual human being? How do his mental qualities - like kindness,
love, cruelty, Ctc. matter when their effect on other human beings is not there to be
evaluated?

Yet the objection to the above scenario suggests itself. Human nature has relevance even
beyond the context of human-to-human inter-personal relationships. Love, kindness, cruelty,
which we ordinarily designate as innate, do manifest in $@ationships with non-human
environment. These qualities do get projected in man's dealings with animals and plants
too. Nor is it a sentimental imagination to talk about human being's nature in its relationship
with non-human life. Philosophers,and eminent naturalists do take cognisance of the inter-
relationships and inter-actions between human beings and their non-human colleagues on
this planet drawing very relevant conclusions about the nature of human nature, and even
about the nature of the animal world.

2.3 PEACE
The state or condition of peace covers a very broad spectrum in human life (personal and
social). Here we will not dwell upon all the aspects, but confine ourselves with the idea
of peace in social relations both local and global, and the various solutions that seek to
preserve peace.

i) Peace as Social Harmony

The ultimate notion of peace would signify that every human being lives in peace with
himself or herself, that is, without inner tensions. But inner peace for iildividuals is itself
normally dependent upon peace in relations with others in social or natural domain. So
also, peace in a society is, in its turn, conditioned by peace in and with aeighbouring
communities.

In actual practice; neither an individual nor a society lives in total harmony. Conflicting
emotions and inter-personal tensions of one sort or another constantly disturb harmony.
Therefore, the aspiration for peace is in a way automatically pegged at a lower level of
expectation. For the same reason spontaneous prevalence of peace without attempts to
sustain it by conscious effort is also almost impossible.

ii) Peace as avoidance of inter-personal conflict

The aim of peace thus is containment of conflict. The strategies to lirnit conflict range from
peaceful'methods of conflict-resolution to the use'of force by some sort of collective will
of the community. We will exanline this aspect in the next section. Here it would be useful
to distinguish between 'avoiding' conflict and 'containing' conflict. In both cases. of course
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conflict between interacting individuals is taken as inevitable. In the case of conflict avoidance,
efforts are made to avoid the causes of conflict as far as possible. In the second case, since
avoidance of conflict altogether is not always possible, conflicts are sought to be contained
By this a society (small or big) through various degrees of collective strength,
01 ic'\f~-jctccl.
includii~gthc use of fo~ce,tries to lirnit the spread of conflict. Thus, social organisation is
the P ~ J O important
\~ step i;l p r e w vrllg I)~'!+cc.
We know that forms of social organisation are many. Family, community, class, caste, tribe
are good illustrations. One feature of all of these organisations is that they have a common
function - that of maintaining peace within the organisation. One can even say that to
organise is to preserve peace internally. In one manner or another, the institution of the
family does that function and so do other larger social institutions like the tribe or the
village. But it is also necessary to realize that these social institutions do not always succeed
in maintaining peace. More so, they may come into conflict with each other. It is precisely
to meet such situations that higher forms of social institutions originated, the highest among
them being the political state which exercises wide-ranging authority and power.

2.4 STATE, SOCIETY AND PEACE

How the state came into being is the subject which constitutes a significant core of political
and social theory. What is important to note for the purpose of our discussion is that the
state, generally defined as "a society which is.politically organised, has for its main purpose
the preservation of peace, commonly expressed in terms of maintaining law and order.

It is also well to remember that the political state enjoys a monopoly in performing this
function as no other institution or association in a given society has similar power and
function to be the ultimate agency in maintaining peace. This general idea is expressed in
legal terminology of sovereignty, which means that the state alone possesses the highest
legitimacy, and other organisations in a society are subject to state control.

But the concept of the sovereignty of the State has been under challenge for a number of
reasons. Chief among these are: (i) that in making the state so conceptually powerful, the
concept ignores the role of other associations in contributing to the peace and welfare of
the society and (ii) it does not recognize the need for external control over the state in its
dealings with other states and thus the concept of state sovereignty promotes the occasion
for inter-state conflict and hinders the promotion of international peace. We will elaborate
on this later. Here it suffices to note that the concept of sovereignty is still strong, continuing
to endow the political state with strong authority and power.

The first objection regarding the over powering authority that sovereignty attributes to the
state can itself be analysed in different ways. Other associations within a society do also
perform functions that promote amity and peace among the people. Some of these are
sanctioned by custom and some directly authorised by the state itself. But if social groups
can themselves get involved in quarrels, the State as the upholder of law and order steps
into the picture as almost the only agency to preserve peace in society as a whole. As
modernity advances, with faster rates of change in social relations, social structures become
more complex bringing new challenges to the fragile fabric of peace. And the modem state
has to cope with them.

The process of modernisation may generate other forces which put a premium on economic
and social tensions. The demands, of workers for job security and better wages, of hitherto
backward classes for greater opportunities for economic and social advancement, and in
general of diverse other social groups for justice and advancement constitute the primary
drive for competition expectations and claims of groups. The increasing demands of social
and economic groups which is generally called as the 'revolution in rising expectations' has
been both the cause and consequence of the well known idea of the Welfare State. We
all know that the welfare state typically means a state with largely expanded functions.
Whereas in the past the function of the state was deemed to be limited to the task of --
maintaining "law and order'' only. the Welfare Statc which came into being in the early 20"'
century, with varying degrees. undertakes the brooder tasks of promoting health, education
and well-being of the members of the society. While it is true that the idea of the welfare
state has begun to recede in many parts of the globe in the last decade or so, the older
notion that the state's role was strictly confined to maintaining law and order has vanished.
Even countries that publicly oppose or withdraw from various welfare functions cannot, in
practice. do away w ~ t ha great many of' such functions. Thus, in one manner or another,
welfare-state has nou come to stay.

The debate over the welfare btate has a very significant bearing on the concept of peace
and the state's role I n prererving and promoting it. If earlier maintenance of 'law and
order' was equated with peace in ~ociety,then that concept of peace can itself be regarded
as a lninimal concept of peace. And in contemporary times when the essence of the welfare
state is made an inherent part of the state's function the state's role in the preservation and
promotion of peace has undergone a great change. That being peace is no longer conceived
as containing conflict. On the contrary, 'peace' now is conceived as creating positive
conditions that contribute to avoiding and even totally eliminating conflict. To be sure, this
is nowhere totally realizable, but the important point is that society and state are now
entrusted with new responsibilities in the task of promoting peace.

It should'also be recognized that as the state has assumed, whether explicitly or implicitly,
more and more functions, the very same social dynamics that caused the expansion of the
state also pushed the other institutions in society to assert themselves. One way of interpreting
this process is to understand that often the State alone is at a loss to cater to all the needs
of society. Given this situation other structures in society step in to perform some of the
important functions. In recent decades society has come to assert its primary authority over
state. Pol.itica1 and social theoristi cull this development as the emergence (or even
resurgence) of Civil Society. I11 this trend, once again we can identify the quest for peace
in society. The critique against the state is that it has either failed to deliver the ~>rohpects
for peace or, worse, its nature of functioning is in fact engendering coctlict and endangering
peace. Civil Society theori~tsaffiriirnl that ncm-slate actors in thc s h i ~ of~ rdiverse social
groupings are standing forth increasingly in attending to the ~1ppropnal.e rearrangement of
social needs and relationships with the aim of bringing about a more just social order and
peace. The critics do concede that the diverse institutions. that are rather loosely designated
as constituting Civil Society, can and do act at cross.pui-poses and that consequently the
lofty purpose of achieving a just social order may be self-defeating. There i h nu derinilive
consensus on this issue.

It is in this connectio~lthat we should turn to describe the methods by which the traditional
State on one hand and the contemporary Ci\ il Society c)n the other seek to achieve peace,
either by controlling or avoiding conflict.

2.5 STATE AS AN INST-R-UMEN T OF PEACE

----

The stare h t ~gradualtq e~~o1vt.d

to i,rr\\ cricicrly
ic!., ;!r , l i I t ' ~ ~ rt ho ~ organisation of society
 Views differ whether the 'orderliness' is only in the interest of a single segment of society
(like the rich, the strong. etc) or in the general interest of the society as a whole. Whatever
may be the degrees of truth that such contending views may contain, it cannot be denied
that the state provides a binding framework to hold the society together. And this framework
is justified ostensibly to maintain law and order.

This is the reason i h y that the states functions centres around 'Law'. In fact, whatever the
state does it does so through law. Lord Bryce, a famous constitutional and political theorist
characterised the state as King Midas, in that whatever it touches it converts into law. The
three organs of the state- the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary- have the law
creating, law implementation and law interpreting functions. It needs to be mentioned that
in the long history of human society and the state a distinct division of the three organs had
not always been there. Such a division had only been conceptual. It is only in modem times
that political philosophers not only specifically identified these three functions, but further
concluded that for the better ordering of the State and society the three functions be
performed by three separate and distinct structures.

Ure have already mentioned that the purpose of the State is to hold the society together.
Since policies of persuasion, the role of custom and tradition and the hold of morality in -

human relationships play a very significant part in keeping society, the state very much
relies on their role. However, it is when tensions and conflicts overtly threaten social order
thatVstatewhich has an exclusive right to the use of use of force, resorts to the use df force
on behalf of the society. Viewed thus, the state's role in regulating society seems to be not
so much in promoting peace as much with containing conflict.

The following devices accomplish the task of containing conflict:

1) By passing a framework of laws, rules and regulations. These laws and rules attempt to lay
down the limits for actions of individuals and groups with a view to ensure that such actions
do not disturb social peace

2) By the establishment of a vast network of administrative mechanism to execute the

above mentioned laws and regulations. Prominent among the executive branch is the
police branch, which is entrusted with controlling and apprehending crime in society.
It is well recognized everywhere that crime is the most explicit and visible manifestation
of disturbance to peace. Prevention of crime is therefore recognized as the maintenance
of minimal peace in any society. The other branches of the administrative network
implement, oversee and monitor the observation of other laws and rules.

Positive unctions
The activities of the State are not confined to prohibiting and compelling the activities of
the individuals in a society. Many of them also relate to promoting human activity conducive
to peaceful living. For the purpose of analysis such state activity may be divided into two
categories.

1) Promoting individual activities that contr1b3t.e to social peace like creating conditions ibr
mutual tolerance of differing ways of thinlung a;~dliving in a social order. The spread of

36
 health and education is essent~aifor the generallon of such a social environment. The
mobilisation of individual disposition to be tolerant towards each other and show their good
will for the social good thus constitutes a very important element in preserving peace.

2) The State has also the obligation not merely to persuade the citizens to act to promote
social good but also to unde ke positive functions, such as promotion of environmental
protection for social health and peace through an ecologically safeguarded environment.

Closely connected with the above-mentioned trend of the modern state with enlarged
conception of peace is the commitment to human rights. This commitment, as we know,
is a more recent one, being an offshoot of the progressive development of democratic
theory and practice. Human Rights guarantee the citizens not only protection from the
excesses of the state and society but also positive entitlements and facilities for individual
growth. Here lies a further endorsement of the incorporation of the maximal or optimal
concern for peace by the State. For instance, the Indian constitution, which should be
considered as the philosophical and socio-political framework for the Indian state
incorporates as its main commitment the chapter on Fundamental Rights which provides
for guarantees against state interference with basic individual rights as well as positive
commitment from the state to ensure a just social order in which these rights can be
accessed by all sections of the society- including those that are socially and educationally
backward. Further, the constitution also incorporates a chapter on Directive Principles of
State Policy which direct or enjoin the State to pursue policies that promote a healthier
natural and material enviroilment as well as ensure a just distribution of the material resources
of the society. Even though the Fundmental Rights provisions and the Directive Principles
provisions slightly differ in ihe degree of their enforceability, they can together be regarded
as one great charter embodying the commitment to a broad conception of peace in society.

2.6 THE CIVIL SOCIETY DIMENSION AND PEACE

In the preceding pages the role of the political state as the final agency dealing with conflict
in society is discussed. Its efforts towards restoring peace through the gradual evolution of
diverse institutional devices are also analysed. Yet, the fact remains that conflict in society
is always present and the state it seems, always has to cope with this given situation. There
are, however, other institutions in the society which also play a role in containing conflict
and restoring peace. This set of institutions, sometimes networks of institutions, is called
Civil Society.

The theory of the relationship between the state and civil society is a changing one. Over
the last three centuries there have been arying theor~es&out this relationship. We will
examine this in some detail in the next unit dealing wltb ~ntra-societaland inter-societal
conflict. Here it suffices to note that in relent decade<'111- civil society. a < an entity distinct
from the state, has emerged as a strong h c e reckon;ng wlth conflict-I-ewlution.Partly this
is due to the perception among some section\ ~7fthe socletles within \tates that the latter
are not capable enough to cope with conflict. or are themselves pursulng socio-economic
policies directly or indirectly contributing to conflict. Whatever be the precise reasons, the
point is that diverse associations, groups and organizations now operate attending to various
functions in the social sphere. Non-governmental organisations (VGOs), community welfare
organisations, and other F U C institutions,
~ undertake many programme? of work ranging
 frompublic health promotion, minnrit: ng its protection. providing legal aid to poor people,
making- -people
- . as watch-dogs on governments. k0 promoting
aware of their right\. ~ c t ~g
national integration. They are mosll: no-,-profit-making institutions deriving funding from
1 charitable trusts both from within the country and abroad. In this role, some of the NGOs
1 act as complimentary organs to (rovernment. Some others do pursue programmes in
1 competition to governmental agencies and some even act as adversary institutions challenging

I the state's institutions. These issues will be examined further in the next unit.

2.7 NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE CONCEPTIONS OF

1 PEACE
In the foregoing pages the terms peace and conflict are clarified. It would bear some
repetition to state that ideally peace is a much wider concept than the absence of conflict.
At the same time, there is the big constraint that conflict, whether pertaining to the individual
innerself, or to conflict between individuals. or to conflicts between communities, cannot
be totally eliminated. What can be done is to contain conflict. Towards this goal all
civilizations have made variety of efforts either through religious prescriptions or other
ideological and institutional devices.

It is in the context of the ineradicability of conflict that a theoretical distinction between

negative and positive conceptions of peace arises. Kenneth Boulding, one of the pioneers
of Peace Research, makes a significant analysis of the positive and negative aspects of
peace. He says, "on the positi~e 5ide. peace cignifies a condition of good management,
orderly resolution of conflict, harmony a\\oc.~~ted with mature relationships, gentleness, and
love. On the negative side, it is conceived 3s the absence of something -the absence of
turmoil, tension, conflict, and war."

It will be observed that Boulding is not identifying positive peace with a state of affair!:
where all tensions and conflicts are eliminated. On the contrary it is his idea of negative
peace that is conceived as the absence of turmoil and conflict. It is to be noted that to
him positive peace is identified with "good management of conflict." Here, the adjective
"good", is very critical to analysis. For even in negative peace, there is the task of
management of conflict. But this management can also take the form of ruthless suppression
of conflict by the st&. After all. often the word 'pacification' is used to connote
establishment of peace by militarily suppressing conflict. Or, conflict is also managed by
pacification thrcugh appeasement of the enemies. At the farthest extreme is the peace of
the gra\,c. Rov,Jing himself reminds of the fact that the phrase. Rest in Peace. engraved
on ~ c ~ n b ~ t oconnotes
ncs the "peace of emptiness" or one of "withdrawal from real~ty".
Thus, ncittcl-ruthlev. pacification, nor appeasement, nor the peace of emptiness can remotely
be e q ~ t ~ t ewith
d peace in the po\itivc sense. In other words. it is the way of managing
conf 1c.t that is ccntml to the distinction between positive and negative conceptions of peace
and not <i:npl? the presence or absence of conflict.

Another way 01' disringuisliin~negative and positive peace. slightly at variance with Boulding's
analy5is is to rega1.d that the ncgati\ c c-oncept refers to minimalisation of conflict at all levels
if not its complete elimination. Positive peace, on the other hand would refer to a cocdition
where concerted efforts are made to circumvent the manifest and latent effects of conllict
conditions. It should be realized that even this distinction between negstive and pocitive
peace does not resemble a zero-sum game situation because ever, under the positive
category the total absence of conflict is not categorically implied. Given this conceptual
difficulty, it would be proper to say that negative and positive conceptions of peace
resemble a mini-max game situation wherein under the negative category a Inore rectricted
scope for containing conflict is implied. whereas under the positive cate$ory a far more
ccmprehensive successful endeavour is implied in tackling conflict. The examples c)f the
laissez faire state, popularly called the 'law and order' or 'police state' on the or,e hand,
and the 'welfare state', on the other, illustrate our point well. The first category denotes
the negative conception of peace, while the second denotes the positive conception.

The dichotomy is even more relevant at the inter-state or international plane. If instead of
the words 'conflict' and 'peace' we employ the words 'war' and 'peace' the dichotomy
become more apparent. It is already noted that mere absence of war does not result in
the sustained prevalence of peace, though the former is the necessary condition for the
latter. The latter needs a more sufficient set of conditions. This aspect of the problem will
figure in the following unit, where the subjects of intrastate and inter-state conflicts are
discussed.

2.8 SUMMARY
We began this unit by examining the origins of the concern with peace and conflict and the
interconnectedness of these concepts. As we saw, it is rather difficult to state which
concept - peace or conflict - comes first. While citing broad instances of spiritual and
religious thinlung linlung peace and conflict with the concepts of good and evil, virtue and
vice we have also referred to the relationship between peace and conflict in the individual
mental processes and their manifestation in the interactions among individuals in societies-
large and small.

The second section analysed peace and conflict as pertaining to the social order. It focused
on the various methods by which society copes with the challenges of peace and conflict.
As we noted, both the 5tate as well civil society have a role in controlling and even
prevention of social strife. The state (also loosely called the government) as the chief
regulatory agency has been in existence since time immemorial in almost all societies. A5
we noted, the state has been more concerned with containing conflict than In avolding or
preventing conflict. And containing conflict is expressed in terms of the very farnlliar phrase.
maintenance of law and order - which also is characterised a<the mmiinali~tor minimal
conception of peace. With the rise of the welfare state, the functions of the state have
expanded. With this, there has been a broadening of the conception of peace and conflict.

The unit also discussed the concepts of negative and positive pcace and their varying
meanings. What emerges from the analysis is that in actual practice 'peace' can best bc
discussed in terms of absence or prevention of conflict - though the phraw prevention of
conflict is itself a very broad term open to narrower or broader stand points.
2.9 EXERCISES
1) Explain how the nature of state has a bearing on the conception of peace and conflict.

2) Analyse how the state in its historical development functioned in managing with conflict and
promoting peace in society.

3) Explain the role of civil society as an agency of conflict resolubon.

4) Describe Kenneth Boulding's conception of negative and positive peace.

5) Explain the various meanings of the concepts of negative and positive peace.